What is an atherectomy?
Have you ever heard of an atherectomy? An atherectomy is used to treat narrowing in arteries caused by peripheral artery disease . What happens is you get fatty streaks built up in the artery and they clog up. So, in an angioplasty (which my grandmother had about 20 years ago), a balloon is inflated and passed though the blocked artery and the plaque is pushed into the sides, widening the pathway for better blood flow. With an atherectomy the plaque is actually removed rather than pushed aside. There are different methods for this (shown below), but the end result is the same. This is some pretty amazing stuff but how does this relate to CrossWind Machining? CrossWind machines components for the rotational version of the atherectomy which is where a special burr or drill on the tip of a catheter rotates to shave the plaque into tiny pieces. Sometimes, sitting here at my desk, I forget how amazing th...